Fourteen hooded men in Ireland victims of CIA, British mind control experiments

A new documentary, The Torture Files was aired last night in parts of Ireland. This docuentary dealt with the internment of Irish Republicans starting in August 1971 and the enhanced interrogation techniques used against 14 men who came to be called the Hooded Men.

These men were subjected to five different techniques of what today we know is and was torture including:

1.) standing in stress positions for long periods of time

2,) white noise

3.) sleep deprivation

4,) food and water deprivation

5.) wearing a hood to enhance feelings of isolation and sensory deprivation

If these methods sound familiar perhaps Abu Grahab comes to mind during the Iraq War. The American CIA and the British have engaged in torture as a mechanism of control for a long time.

The origins of the whole concept of mind control go back to very beginnings of the Cold War. In 1951 Canada, Britian and the US met at the Ritz Carlton to plan for collaboration in experiments with brain washing, torture and mind conntrol.

This would lead to the experiments of Dr,. Ewen Cameron at McGill University using his unsuspecting students as guinea pigs. Cameron believed that you could shock the system using techniques such as electro shoch therapy, sensory deprivation, and hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD to erase the memory and thus the personality and with a blank slate to work with a new healtier persona could be created.

If this sounds like something out of George Orwell it should. In 1984 Orwell had a comment fitting these techniques, " First we will squeeze you empty then we will fill you with ourselves."

Instead of a cure for schizophrenia as camron hoped to create, the off shoot of Camron's work was a program in the CIA parlance called MKUltra mind control. The only real goal of MKUltra was the devlopment of effective methods of torure and intrrogation.

In 1963 the CIA published the first Kubark manual. This manual, which has been declassified and can be found online, is instructive because it spells out the purpose of these techniques as the offshoorts of MKUltra to be to induce psychologicl regression in the subject by breaking down his will to resist. Variations of the five techniques listed earliar are the methods used to create mental states ranging from temporary psychosis to permanent psychological impairment.

Britain's whole response to the Troubles in Ireland was part of a whole package of psychological warfare against the Irish people. These tactics included arrests made in the middle of the night, use of beatings, lying and misinformation to create mental confusion, and later food and water deprivation, use of a hood to create a sense of isolation and sensory deprivation, standing is a stressful position for long periods of time, and constant noise to create deep psychological distress in the victim.

The implications of the Irish Hooded Men torture scandals has farreaching implications. The US and Britain both continue to use brutal and barbaric means of mind control for enhanced interrogation but some of the theory behind these torture techniques has also been used as a means of advancing Free Market Capitalism or austerity the world over.

In a crisis human beings and governments do not think and respond clearly. The goal then is to create a crisis which in Free market terms has usually meant some form of economic crisis. When the economic shock occurs to governments to the rescue in Rush the World Bank and IMF to provide the necessary loans for economic enslavement then when the leaders recover it is too late the country has been economically taken over and instead of democracy what is left is participatory totalitarinism.

The Irish hooded men were used as human guinea pigs which is dispicable in and of itself. But if we are to begin to find justice then those who engaged in torture should be tried as war criminals. That would and should include Bush and Cheney.

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Tim currently teaches History, Government and English at a private high school in Pennsylvania. He has a BA in History and Political Science from University of Iowa and his M.Ed. from Concordia University
Portland, Oregon. Tim has been active in union organizing in his work place and in environmental causes such as fracking.